Jeremy Pruitt wants to see two things in particular throughout the rest of preseason practice: more toughness and more consistency.

The Vols had their first practice in full pads on Wednesday. A day later, Pruitt described the practice as having "lots of good, lots of bad. Really inconsistent."

"Lots of lessons to be learned," Pruitt said. "We’ve got some guys that play with toughness, but they don’t do it all the time. It shows you they can do it, but if you’re going to be a great player or have a great team, the No. 1 probably core ingredient is, you better have a tough football team. We’ve got some guys that can do it. Not all of them are doing it all the time.”

Pruitt hasn't tipped his hand on the quarterback competition, although Jarrett Guarantano continues to lead the pack in practice. He's aiming to hold off Keller Chryst, Will McBride and JT Shrout.

"There's lots of competition at that position," Pruitt said. "Some days, some guys do better than they did the day before. But there's lots of inconsistency. We've got to find a guy that's going to be consistent, that will take care of the football and make the guys around them better."

Pruitt said he'd reassess the quarterback competition in a few days. The Vols will have their first scrimmage on Sunday. It will be closed, with Pruitt addressing reporters afterward.